Azure-docs: Confusing Guidance

[Mike-E-angelo]

1. Not sure why Excel is mentioned here? It might be beneficial to explain a little more around this.
2. Having some trouble with a Web linked service. It appears no URL is allowed/displayed and the "advanced" does not show the properties above. Seen here when testing connection:

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Document Details

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• ID: a51b3335-6434-a98a-28b1-75f8e14aa9cd
• Version Independent ID: 6fd36a6f-71a5-4adb-c8e5-da18b43cc176
• Content: Copy data from Web Table using Azure Data Factory
• Content Source: articles/data-factory/connector-web-table.md
• Service: data-factory
• GitHub Login: @linda33wj
• Microsoft Alias: jingwang

[mimckitt]

@Mike-EEE Thanks for the feedback! I have assigned the issue to the content author to investigate further and update the document as appropriate.

[linda33wj]

@Mike-EEE
For Q1, Excel can be used to locate a HTML table (get index), and feed into the ADF configuration.
For Q2, currently Web connector doesn't have UI-based authoring experience, you need paste the config in JSON into Advanced tab. Try below.

Another reminder: make sure you do need Web connector instead of HTTP connector, which has different capabilities though both retrieve data from an endpoint.

{
    "properties": {
        "typeProperties": {
            "url" : "<input your url>",
            "authenticationType": "Anonymous"
        }
    }
}

[linda33wj]

in-process

[Mike-E-angelo]

Thanks for your reply and additional information, @linda33wj. In my estimation, as someone who has no context/orientation around your product, I would recommend putting a little more context around the Excel as it seems to arrive out of nowhere and is an abrupt transition.

I did not know about web connector and now I am truly confused on the difference between the two. 😉 In my case I am calling an HTTP REST WebAPI which has both "Web" and "Http" in there, so having a resource somewhere that delineates the two would be incredibly valuable to a newb such as myself who is learning about your product.

[linda33wj]

@Mike-EEE thanks for the feedback on Excel. I'll add more notes there.

I saw you were trying the Web connector on UI thus want to raise the diff, as in majority cases we observe, HTTP connector is what customer need. I think it's the case for your scenario as well. I'd suggest you try the HTTP connector to evaluate, it has UI-based authoring and it's supported in the copy data tool wizard as well.

Regarding the difference between HTTP connector vs Web connector, the links I sent in previous reply describe the respective capability. Let me clarify here again:

• HTTP connector is used to retrieve data in response/file-stream from HTTP/REST endpoint.
• Web table connector is used to extract data from HTML table in a web page.

[Mike-E-angelo]

OK, so to add to my confusion here, from your first comment I thought it was a Web connector, but it is actually a Web _table_ connector. 😆 And yes, after about a day of fighting with Azure Data Factory, I did end up using the Http connector.

FWIW, in my case, I could not for the life of me get my http connector to work until I put in a User-Agent header for the request. It must have been about an hour or so doing searches online to figure out what was the problem, which was compounded by the fact that it was a public REST endpoint that was working just fine in my browser. Ultimately, I ended up copying/pasting all the headers used in my browser session and finally reduced it to that one header.

I am not sure if this is applicable, or if this is a common/standard/assumed practice, but having a note somewhere in the Http connector documentation to use headers from your browser as a template might be worth mentioning. It's something that I will be doing from now on, at least. 😛

In any case, knowing that there isn't public-UI is valuable here. Thank you for clarifying that. It's actually _very_ surprising that the most critical part of this UI is not exposed and made available to the user, resulting in the poor and confusing experience above. Preview, indeed. 😉

[linda33wj]

@Mike-EEE to test REST api calls, if you are not sure how it works, usually we suggest customer to learn from the API spec on header/body requirements (assuming it's public or organizational) and use tools like Postman to validate, before configure ADF.

And to clarify/add on ADF authoring UI - HTTP connector and majority common connectors do have UI-based authoring for linked service/dataset/copy activity as well as copy data tool wizard. Yes, there are some connectors like Web table currently are JSON based which is confusing, while we are gradually improving this area per connector popularity/importance order.

[linda33wj]

I've add tips for HTTP connector and Web connector in doc based on your feedback. It will go live soon.

please-close

[Mike-E-angelo]

Great, thank you @linda33wj !